I have been wargaming for many years, part of the Featherstone generation, and I have played almost every period and scale that you can imagine. I started with Airfix, as so many did, and WW2 is still the period I return to most often. But I have played Ancients, Colonials, Naval (sail and steam), Western and Sci Fi, almost anything you could think of, mostly solo. I am also an inveterate collector of rule sets, most of which never actually get played.

Saturday, 5 March 2016

Down the M6 and across the A50 to Newark for Hammerhead 2016. A new show to me, but it has a bit of history and one of the bigger ones on the circuit, I think. The venue is a large exhibition hall on the Newark Showground, so vast amounts of parking all around. The building is suited to the event, not surprisingly as a purpose-built exhibition hall, so plenty of space and light, though you wouldn't say it has a lot of character. The food was supplied by the "Bistro" in the building, but "Caff" would have been a better name - chips with pasties, burgers and sausage rolls, and bacon baps. Fine by me, as it happens, but not a lot of choice if that's not to your taste.
As for the show itself, all the games were designated as participation-based, and as far as I could see they were mostly busy, though a few at the far ends seemed quiet. There was a good variety, from witch racing through WW1 to sci-fi with 3D printed models. There seemed to be quite a few aerial games - Wings of Glory, at least one jet combat game, and a nice looking one with Japanese planes attacking a US AA destroyer in 1943. The ship model in that one was quite large, but not as big as the one in another game using the third dimension. This featured an underwater frogman attack on a ship which only appeared in the form of the bottom of the hull, which formed the "roof" of the playing area. The divers moved up and down below this, presumably trying to attach limpet mines.
There was also a good selection of traders, all around the outside of the space. Personally I was slightly disappointed because there was no 6mm WW2 - Wargames Emporium and Magister Militum weren't there, and Baccus did not have any of their new WW2 infantry (I have a couple of these on order and due to arrive soon). I was also hoping to find one of the printed battle mats - Cigar Box or something like that, but there were none on show - just some plain coloured blankets. Still I managed to collect a fair amount of booty, on show in the picture below.

Centre rear is some stuff for the airbrush - a stand and some primers in various shades. To the right is some other paints - Basetex for the bases on my 6mm infantry, and a couple of metals for the bigger models. In front of those are two items from Ainsty for my Pulp games, and a Renedra Arab/Adobe house ditto. Then three terrain items in 6mm, fields and town bases, from The Baggagetrain. To their left are two packs of Pulp Figures, sailors for the ship I painted last month.
On the extreme left are the new rulesets which I always wind up buying at a show. I have finally cracked and bought General Quarters 3 (WW2 naval). For decades GQ1/2 has been pretty much the default ruleset for 20th century naval wargames, certainly for me. The new rules, which were a long time coming, are supposed to be much more detailed, which is not necessarily a good thing, in my view. Anyway, now I will get a chance to judge for myself.
The other rules are Lion Rampant from Osprey - Medieval skirmish/small battles. I've been thinking about these for some time, and I was persuaded by my other purchase, a box of Teutonic infantry from Deus Vult. - plastic and lots of mix and match heads and arms. I am looking forward to making and painting those, and they gave me an excuse to buy the rules, and vice versa. So there's 2-3 different genres there, plus the WW2 6mm, and I'm not sure which one will run away with me in the near future.